and staff review a draft of his address to the Nation on recommendations for tax reduction and spending, to be delivered that evening. Clockwise: President Ford, Economic Affairs Assistant
L. William Seidman, OMB Director
James Thomas Lynn, OMB Deputy Director Paul H. O'Neill, Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) Chairman
Alan Greenspan, Deputy Assistant to the President for White House Operations
Dick Cheney, Assistant to the President for White House Operations
Don Rumsfeld, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy Charles M. Walker. O'Neill began his public service as a computer systems analyst with the
United States Department of Veterans Affairs, where he served from 1961 to 1966. He joined the
United States Office of Management and Budget in 1967 and served as its deputy director from 1974 to 1977. O'Neill along with
Kenneth W. Dam and
William A. Morrill resisted President
Richard Nixon in 1973 when he tried cutting off federal funding to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in retaliation for it allowing anti-war protests over the
Vietnam War. The three threatened to resign and reminded Nixon that the executive office could not rescind the federal grants, forcing him to back down. According to
Frank Zarb, he, O'Neill,
Roy Ash and
Fred Malek mostly ran the government in 1974 as Nixon's authority was eroded with the
Watergate scandal. O'Neill was chairman and CEO of the
Pittsburgh industrial giant Alcoa from 1987 to 1999 and retired as chairman at the end of 2000. At the beginning of his tenure O'Neill encountered significant resistance from the Board of Directors due to his stance on prioritizing
worker safety. One argued reason that he could remain in office was his level of CEO power. The company's market value increased from $3 billion in 1986 to $27.53 billion in 2000, while net income increased from $200 million to $1.484 billion. In 1988, O'Neill joined the
RAND Corporation as a member of its
board of trustees and in 1997 was elected as its chairperson. He resigned after being appointed as the treasury secretary, but was appointed to RAND's board of trustees again in 2003 after losing his job. He also served on RAND Health's advisory board. After being dismissed as Treasury Secretary, he became a special advisor for
The Blackstone Group. In addition he also acted as an
angel investor with his son Paul Jr. for Qcept Technologies Inc. in 2004, and joined it as a
board director. In 2005, he established a
consulting firm named Value Capture that advises health care institutions on reducing expenses as well as increasing safety of patients. In December 1997, O'Neill together with
Karen Wolk Feinstein, President of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, founded the
Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI). They assembled a wide-ranging coalition of healthcare interests to begin addressing the problems of healthcare as a region. PRHI adapted the principles of the
Toyota Production System into the "Perfecting Patient Care" system. O'Neill became a leader locally and nationally in addressing issues of patient safety and quality in healthcare. O'Neill was a co-founder of Pittsburgh's
Riverlife Task Force, established in 1999. He served on its very first task force with
Jim Rohr,
Teresa Heinz, the CEO of Richard King Mellon Foundation Mike Watson, the President of the
Heinz Endowments Mark King and the editor of the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette John G. Craig Jr. among others. O'Neill was also a member of the Dean's Advisory Council of
Carnegie Mellon University's
Heinz College. In addition, he served on the board of directors of the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In 2006, he published the results of a study conducted from 2003 to 2005 at
Allegheny General Hospital along with a team of doctors led by Richard Shannon, in the
Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. It showed reduction in infections through a team coordinating to prevent infections in the bloodstream. He also rejoined PRHI as its CEO in October 2003. O'Neill became a
trustee of the
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in February 2003, but left in September 2004 due to it not joining a programme to make hospitals eliminate medical errors. During his tenure he often disagreed with UPMC's CEO
Jeffrey Romoff and also opposed its plans to shut
Highmark-insured patients out of receiving treatment at affiliated hospitals in 2019. In June 2019, he was awarded the Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service by the
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation.
Bush administration O'Neill was appointed as the Secretary of the Treasury by the newly elected president
George W. Bush in January 2001. He believed in fiscal prudence, increasing productivity and also encouraging workers with safeguards for their jobs. As the secretary he strongly disagreed with the
strong dollar policy, ceremonial speeches and large bailouts, while favoring personally touring American factories and reducing the length of written statements by the
finance ministers belonging to the
Group of Seven. O'Neill saw the United States through the
2001 recession and
9/11 attacks. He initially helped pass the first
tax cuts under the Bush administration but stringently opposed the second. He also clashed with Bush on his
steel tariffs as well as actions against Cuba. O'Neill also helped Turkey, Argentina and Brazil in receiving loans from the
International Monetary Fund but opposed more financial assistance. His cavalcade was once attacked with eggs during a visit to Argentina because of his stating the country had “no industry to speak of.” He however also encouraged governments to increase grants by the
World Bank and cracking down on monetary support of terrorism. In this regard, he encouraged governments to further regulate non-traditional lending systems such as
hawala, and was a strong proponent of integrating largely non-participatory governments, organizations, and individuals into more formal financial institutions. In May 2002, he visited Africa with
Bono to draw attention to the continent's poor. During his tenure, he was known for his outspokenness which would eventually cost him his job in December 2002. The book describes many of the conflicts that O'Neill had with the Bush administration. It also details his criticisms of some of Bush's economic policies. O'Neill claims that Bush appeared somewhat unquestioning and incurious, and that the
Iraq War was planned from the first
National Security Council meeting, soon after the administration took office. At the first cabinet meeting of the new Bush administration, O'Neill observed that the debate was not "should we attack Iraq?" but rather "how do we go about attacking Iraq?" ==Personal life==